In music, one doesn't make
the end of the composition
the point of the composition.
If that were so, the best conductors
would be those who played fastest.
And there would be composers
who wrote only finales.
[laughs] People would go to concerts
just to hear one crashing chord--
and that's the end [laughs].
But, we don't see that as, uh, something
brought by our education
into our everyday conduct.
We've got a system of schooling
that gives a completely different impression.
It's all graded and what we do is we put the
child into the corridor of this grade system
with a kind of, "come on kitty kitty kitty"
and now you go to kindergarten, you know, and that's a
great thing because when you finish that
you get into first grade and then, come on,
first grade leads to second grade and so on.
And then you get out of grade school you got high school
and it's revving up--the thing is coming--
and then you've got to go to college.
And, by jove, then you get into graduate school.
And when you're through with graduate school
you go out and join the world.
And then you get into some racket
where you're selling insurance
and they've got that quota to make.
And you're going to make that.
And all the time the thing is coming.
It's coming, it's coming --that great thing--
the success you're working for.
Then when you wake up one day
about 40 years old
and you say, "My god I've arrived!"
"I'm there!"
And you don't feel very different
from what you've always felt.
And there's a slight let down because you feel
there's a hoax.
And there was a hoax.
A dreadful hoax.
They made you miss everything
We thought of life by analogy with a journey
with a pilgrimage
which had a serious purpose at the end.
And the thing was to get to that end.
Success or whatever it is...
or maybe heaven after you're dead.
But, we missed the point the whole way along.
It was a musical thing and you were supposed
to sing or to dance while the music was being played.